BOOK REVIEW

by Jan P. Hogendijk

50 percent of the book is detailed expert information on the history of the exact sciences in Islamic civilization, very well presented. Elaheh knows Arabic perfectly, Persian is her native language, and she knows everything that is going on in the field (I would say that there are no more than 20, perhaps 50 people who have this amount of expert knowledge).

The other 50 percent is information of a more cultural nature, again written by an expert. Elaheh’s knowledge is very wide and diverse and she has done an enormous amount of reading - Elaheh can have access to that part much more than I (as a Western historian of science) would ever be able to do. For example: very interesting poetry from the Islamic tradition (in Arabic and in Persian) which she has translated into English for the first time.

The effective mix of aspects no. 1 and 2 already make the book special. But there is more.

Elaheh is not a scholar in an ivory tower. One of her main interests is to make all this wonderful knowledge available to different kinds of wide audiences, and also, preferably, having interaction with the audience. In the parts about the student Leo, one learns about not only what courses Elaheh has taught but also what popularizing activities (exhibitions, micromaps, and so on) she has developed (and this is a lot).

(By the way, I am also interested in this aspect and this is how in my opinion Elaheh and I have basically met (as human beings, not as scholars). This aspect makes it such a pleasure to meet again and again. I think that Elaheh’s group and “my” group are among the very few groups in the world who are interested in this kind of thing. We can always have a friendly and interesting dialogue about these aspects!

The most ‘shocking’ aspect of the book to me [I mean this in a positive sense] is its symbolic structure. I mean:

• the overall theme of the dialogue between Baghdad and Isfahan or, really, the Arabic and the Persian (which are treated as different but equally valuable)

• the relation of this with the moon and the sun

• the division into 7 chapters which are subdivided in similar ways;

• the rhythmic chapter titles

• the parallel development of three story lines:

  • 7 stages in the life of a manuscript

  • 7 stages in the work of a young modern student

  • 7 stages in the development of Arabic and Persian science;

• the connection of the stages with moon phases;

• the multi-layered approach to time - for example, treating not only the author of a manuscript but also its scribe and the different stages in its life; who read it etc., and then the modern reader, and what one can do with it in the future.

It took me quite some time to come to terms with this aspect of the book and I am not sure whether I have come to terms with it. I have never seen a history of science book like this. I would say that a subtle atmosphere of Persian mysticism pervades the pages of this book, although (almost) never mentioned explicitly.

The structure of the book sometimes reminds me of a complex Persian-Islamic tiling in which several different but interwoven patterns can be distinguished if one makes an effort, and after that the pattern becomes an undivided whole again.

The message of the book is perhaps most evident in the dreams and hopes of Leo (p. 195 bottom and 196 top). I have read this part (and some other parts) of your book to Wilfred and Tom (Maera: these are the two guys with whom I always teach workshops in Islamic countries) over breakfast this morning. They remark: it is important to preserve diversity. The world should not become homogeneous. Then one will lose a lot of flavours.

----------

Jan Pieter Hogendijk is a Dutch mathematician and historian of science. Since 2005 he was professor of history of mathematics at the University of Utrecht. Hogendijk became a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010.